An effective marketing strategy is the single most important aspect of any marketer’s role and failure to accomplish this can be the greatest threat to moving forward with one’s business.  Characteristics of some of the most powerful approaches to this strategy often have little to do with what a business does and much more to do with how a business goes about doing it.

Explaining this higher level of purpose as your marketing strategy can be challenging at first.  You can make all the grand plans possible about delivering an entertaining, inspiring, simple, surprising or mission filled strategy, but you won’t make it happen unless it comes from within – at the hands of fun, inspired, motivated, surprised and connected employees.

Below are a few powerful ideas on how to take your message from a high level purpose to a clearly painted marketing strategy.

Your Next Hire

It has become pretty standard business advice to suggest that you need to “hire for fit” rather than focusing only on experience or job skills.  Your recruitment process should aim to attract people that share your mission but also fit in the culture of your business.  Doing so will help allow your employees to tell and relate to your story.

Fail in the Favor of the Customer

Companies that really get this know that mistakes will be made and only ask when they make a mistake or are faced with a tough customer related decision, make it in favor of the customer.  This mindset doesn’t ask you to encourage mistakes, but it may be the ticket to actually empowering your staff.

Customer Touch Points

Review the entire process from getting customers to know, like and trust you to moving them into try, buy, repeat and refer.  Create a diagram consisting of these stages and map out every touch point you have or should have in order to ensure that nothing is falling through the cracks and every step is consistent with your companies’ culture.

Strategy Scorecard

You have to find ways to keep real strategy alive in the everyday language of the organization.  If you can turn it into a living, breathing, acting character in your business, it will become one of the most valuable assets your business possesses.

One of the best ways to do this is to turn strategy thinking into a game. Create scorecards that reward people for thinking, employing and acting with marketing strategy.

Courtesy of John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing. Republished with permission.